When you think of the curly-haired accordion professional Weird Al Yankovic, you probably don’t automatically think of that scrawny little glasses-wearing wizard that the world has come to know and love, or the actor who played him. Yes, Daniel Radcliffe is very famous and a very good actor (just watch the underrated magician classic How You See Me 2) but he also has what Weird Al was looking for when casting his biopic: the nerd factor.
In a new interview with the AV Club, Yankovic explained why he absolutely needed Radcliffe on board for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, and it was all because of a performance he did on The Graham Norton Show over a decade ago. Radcliffe was a guest star alongside Rihanna, and Yankovic knew he had “it” (whatever “it” is).
I did see Daniel on TV in 2010 on The Graham Norton Show, where he performed “The Elements” by Tom Lehrer, which is an extremely nerdy thing to do. The fact that he memorized that and then performed it on national TV in front of Rihanna? That’s alpha-nerd stuff. I thought at that moment, “Oh, we’re kindred spirits. This guy … we’ll be friends.” I had that in the back of my mind for years. When we started casting the movie, and Daniel’s name appeared on the shortlist of actors we were considering, I thought, ‘Daniel’s got to be the guy.’ He’s got the right spirit. He got the right energy. He definitely has the acting chops. I can’t imagine anybody that would be more suited to this role than him.
Radcliffe has since said that the ordeal was “mortifying” but he ended up catching the eye of Yankovic, so it all worked out in the end! Being a nerdy guy helped Radcliffe get the role, but Yankovic said it was his delicate balance between comedic timing and dramatic monologues that made him a perfect fit. “He pulls off the comedic and dramatic moments amazingly well, which is not an easy thing. We’re going for a very specific tone. It’s obviously a comedy, but we’re not playing it like a comedy,” Yankovic explained.
Even though they know it’s not going to win any Academy Awards (even though it should!), the movie has some moments that tug at your heartstrings, sandwiched in between fun moments like when Al discovered “My Sharona” would rhyme perfectly with “bologna.” Yankovic added, “We’re playing it like an extremely serious Oscar-baiting Hollywood biopic, so the comedic and dramatic moments had to land. There are some moments where some people weep, in the screenings. It hits both ends of the spectrum. We needed somebody like Daniel, who’d be able to play both sides.”
Not only can Radcliffe play both sides, but he can also play a dead guy. What can’t this man do?
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is now streaming on Roku.
Source: https://uproxx.com/movies/weird-al-rihanna-daniel-radcliffe/